The court man looks horrified at the balladeers getting wind of it all and nods vigorously and stands up, then tells me to come with him. He walks me across the hall and puts me into a side-room and locks the door behind him. On the other side of the door I hear his footsteps click across the hall and then the murmurings of voices and the creaking of the great doors, and then nothing more than a long, still silence.

I am alone again, briefly. The side-room is a small cubby with a writing desk and a chair, which I sit down on. This might be one of the rooms the law men use. Mibbie they sit here and sign things like death-papers, and pay bills for hangmen and floggers and jailers. I know what lies beneath my feet too. Another set of rooms where the condemned live out their last days. They will be empty now, cleared out this morning, awaiting the next lot. I think of the woman who lay on the mat next to mine. I think the anatomists will have her now.

Time passes. I am brought a plate of cold but decent bacon and cabbage and a large cup of ale. By the time I have finished it, I do feel a lot better and, dare I say it, human again.

The window in the side-room is not stained glass, but is small and grimy with cobwebs and soot. It peers onto a narrow close that no one seems to frequent, so I have no idea of what is happening outside. They might take me back to the gallows again. And then what? The bacon and cabbage that seemed so welcome a few moments ago now churn in my belly and I have to breathe slowly to keep them there.

A sharp rap at the door tells me the sheriffs have been persuaded from their victuals. I am summoned to the courtroom. It is the same man as before. This time he makes no comment, but leads the way. We turn through a series of corridors and, when we get to the courtroom, I realize it is the same courtroom too, the one they tried me in. Then it was crammed with all manner of folk come to see the spectacle. Now it is eerily quiet.

The sheriffs have pulled on their robes and wigs and stand unsteadily, three of them, behind their bench, with faces so dismayed I think it a shame the balladeers are not here to record the scene.

Eventually one of them speaks. The one who was my sheriff, a man called McAllister.

‘She looks fairly unscathed, apart from that rope-mark. Her colour is good. I dare say she doesn’t even need a physician,’ he says.

His colleagues murmur and stare.